ADUMBRATIONS
"In the morning of the eventful day," it is set forth in the _Histoire
Intime_, "I was in Khalid's room writing a letter, when Ahmed Bey
comes in to confer with him. They remain together for some while
during which I could hear Khalid growl and Ahmed Bey gently
whispering, 'But the Dastur, the Unionists, Mother Society,'--this
being the burden of his song. When he leaves, Khalid, with a scowl on
his brow, paces up and down the room, saying, 'They would treat me
like a school boy; they would have me speak by rule, and according to
their own dictation. They even espy my words and actions as if I were
an enemy of the Constitution. No; let them find another. The servile
spouters in the land are as plenty as summer flies. After I deliver my
address to-day, Shakib, we will take the first train for Baalbek. I
want to see my mother. No, billah! I can not go any further with these
Turks. Why, read this.' And he hands me the memorandum, or outline of
the speech given to him by Ahmed Bey."
And this, we learn, is a litany of praises, beginning with Abd'ul-Hamid
and ending with the ulema of Damascus; which litany the Society
Deputies would place in the mouth of Khalid for the good of all
concerned. Ay, for his good, too, if he but knew. If he but looked
behind him, he would have yielded a whit, this Khalid. The deep chasm
between him and the Deputy, however, justifies the conduct of each
on his side: the lack of gumption in the one and the lack of depth in
the other render impossible any sort of understanding between them.
While we recommend, therefore, the prudence of the oleaginous Ahmed,
we can not with justice condemn the perversity of our fretful Khalid.
For he who makes loud boast of spiritual freedom, is, nevertheless, a
slave of the Idea. And slavery in some shape or shade will clutch at
the heart of the most powerful and most developed of mortals. Poor
Khalid! if Truth commands thee to destroy the memorandum of Ahmed
Bey, Wisdom suggests that thou destroy, too, thine address. And
Wisdom in the person of Sheikh Taleb now knocks at thy door.
The Sheikh is come to admonish Khalid, not to return his visit. For at
this hour of the day he should have been a-bed; but his esteem for
Mrs. Gotfry, billah, his love, too, for her friend Khalid, and his
desire to avert a possible danger, banish sleep from his eyes.
"My spirit is perturbed about thee," thus further, "and I can not feel
at ease until I have given my friendly counsel. Thou art free to
follow it or not to follow it. But for the sake of this beard Sheikh
Khalid, do not speak at the Mosque to-day. I know the people of this
City: they are ignorant, obtuse, fanatical, blind. 'God hath sealed
up their hearts and their hearing.' They will not hear thee; they can
not understand thee. I know them better than thou: I have lived
amongst them for forty years. And what talk have we wasted. They will
not hear; they can not see. It's a dog's tail, Sheikh Khalid. And what
Allah hath twisted, man can not straighten. So, let it be. Let them
wallow in their ignorance. Or, if thou wilt help them, talk not to
them direct. Use the medium of the holy man, like myself. This is my
advice to thee. For thine own sake and for the sake of that good
woman, thy friend and mine, I give it. Now, I can go and sleep.
Salaam."
And the grey beard of Sheikh Taleb and his sharp blue eyes were
animated, as he spoke, agitated like his spirit. What he has heard
abroad and what he suspects, are shadowed forth in his friendly
counsel. Let Khalid reflect upon it. Our Scribe, at least, is
persuaded that Sheikh Taleb spoke as a friend. And he, too, suspects
that something is brewing abroad. He would have Khalid hearken,
therefore, to the Sheikh.
But Khalid in silence ponders the matter. And at table, even Mrs.
Gotfry can not induce him to speak. She has just returned from the
bazaar; she could hardly make her way through the choked arcade
leading to the Mosque; the crowd is immense and tumultuous; and a
company of the Dragoons is gone forth to open the way and maintain
order. "But I don't think they are going to succeed," she added.
Silently, impassively, Khalid hears this. And after going through the
second course, eating as if he were dreaming, he gets up and leaves
the table. Mrs. Gotfry, somewhat concerned, orders her last course,
takes her thimble-full of coffee at a gulp, and, leaving likewise,
hurries upstairs and calls Khalid, who was pacing up and down the
hall, into her room.
"What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing, nothing," murmured Khalid absent-mindedly.
"That's not true. Everything belies your words. Why, your actions,
your expression, your silence oppresses me. I know what is disturbing
you. And I would prevail upon you, if I could, to give up this
afternoon's business. Don't go; don't speak. I have a premonition that
things are not going to end well. Why, even my dragoman says that the
Mohammedan mob is intent upon some evil business. Be advised. And
since you are going to break with your associates, why not do so now.
The quicker the better. Come, make up your mind. And we'll not wait
for the morning train. We'll leave for Baalbek in a special carriage
this afternoon. What say you?"
Just then the brass band in front of the Hotel struck up the Dastur
march in honour of the Sheikhs who come to escort the Unionist
Deputies and the speaker to the Mosque.
"I have made up my mind. I have given my word."
And being called, Mrs. Gotfry, though loath to let him go, presses his
hand and wishes him good speed.
And here we are in the carriage on the right of the green-turbaned
Sheikh. We look disdainfully on the troops, the brass band, and the
crowd of nondescripts that are leading the procession. We cross the
bridge, pass the Town-Hall, and, winding a narrow street groaning with
an electric tramway, we come to the grand arcade in which the
multitudes on both sides are pressed against the walls and into the
stalls by the bullying Dragoons. We drive through until we reach the
arch, where some Khalif of the Omayiahs used to take the air. And
descending from the carriage, we walk a few paces between two rows of
book-shops, and here we are in the court of the grand Mosque Omayiah.
We elbow our way through the pressing, distressing multitudes,
following Ahmed Bey into the Mosque, while the Army Officer mounts a
platform in the court and dispenses to the crowd there of his Turkish
blatherskite. We stand in the Mosque near the heavy tapestried square
which is said to be the sarcophagus of St. John. Already a Sheikh is
in the pulpit preaching on the excellences of liberty, chopping out
definitions of equality, and quoting from Al-Hadith to prove that all
men are Allah's children and that the most favoured in Allah's sight
is he who is most loving to his brother man. He then winds up with an
encomium on the heroes of the day, curses vehemently the reactionaries
and those who curse them not (the Mosque resounds with "Curse the
reactionists, curse them all!"), tramples beneath his heel every spy
and informer of the New Era, invokes the great Allah and his Apostle
to watch over the patriots and friends of the Ottoman nation, to
visit with grievous punishment its enemies, and--descends.
The silence of expectation ensues. The Mosque is crowded; and the
press of turbans is such that if a pea were dropt from above it would
not reach the floor. From the pulpit the great Mohammedan audience,
with its red fezes, its green and white turbans, seemed to Khalid like
a verdant field overgrown with daisies and poppies. "It is the
beginning of Arabia's Spring, the resuscitation of the glory of
Islam," and so forth; thus opening with a flourish of flattery like
the spouting tricksters whom he so harshly judges. And what shall we
say of him? It were not fair quickly to condemn, to cry him down at
the start. Perhaps he was thus inspired by the august assembly;
perhaps he quailed and thought it wise to follow thus far the advice
of his friends. "It was neither this nor that," say our Scribe. "For
as he stood in the tribune, the picture of the field of daisies and
poppies suggested the picture of Spring. A speaker is not always
responsible for the frolics of his fancy. Indeed, an audience of some
five thousand souls, all intent upon this opaque, mysterious Entity in
the tribune, is bound to reach the very heart of it; for think what
five thousand rays focussed on a sensitive plate can do." Thus our
Scribe, apologetically.
But after the first contact and the vibrations of enthusiasm and
flattery that followed, Khalid regains his equilibrium and reason, and
strikes into his favourite theme. He begins by arraigning the
utilitarian spirit of Europe, the rank materialism which is invading
our very temples of worship. God, Truth, Virtue, with them, is no
longer esteemed for its own worth, but for what it can yield of the
necessities and luxuries of life. And with these cynical materialistic
abominations they would be supreme even in the East; they would
extinguish with their dominating spirit of trade every noble virtue of
the soul. And yet, they make presumption of introducing civilisation
by benevolent assimilation, rather dissimulation. For even an
Englishman in our country, for instance, is unlike himself in his own.
The American, too, who is loud-lunged about democracy and shirt-sleeve
diplomacy, wheedles and truckles as good as the wiliest of our pashas.
And further he exclaims:
"Not to Christian Europe as represented by the State, therefore, or by
the industrial powers of wealth, or by the alluring charms of
decadence in art and literature, or by missionary and educational
institutions, would I have you turn for light and guidance. No: from
these plagues of civilisation protect us, Allah! No: let us have
nothing to do with that practical Christianity which is become a sort
of divine key to Colonisation; a mint, as it were, which continually
replenishes the treasuries of Christendom. Let us have nothing to do
with their propagandas for the propagation of supreme Fakes. No, no.
Not this Europe, O my Brothers, should we take for our model or
emulate: not the Europe which is being dereligionised by Material
Science; disorganised by Communion and Anarchy; befuddled by
Alcoholism; enervated by Debauch. To another Europe indeed, would I
direct you--a Europe, high, noble, healthy, pure, and withal
progressive. To the deep and inexhaustible sources of genius there, of
reason and wisdom and truth, would I have you advert the mind. The
divine idealism of German philosophy, the lofty purity of true French
art, the strength and sterling worth of English freedom,--these we
should try to emulate; these we should introduce into the gorgeous
besottedness of Oriental life, and literature, and religion...."
And thus, until he reaches the heart of his subject; while the field
of daisies and poppies before him gently sways as under a soft morning
breeze; nods, as it were, its approbation.
"Truly," he continues, "religion is purely a work of the heart,--the
human heart, and the heart of the world as well. For have not the
three monotheistic religions been born in this very heart of the
world, in Arabia, Syria, and Palestine? And are not our Books of
Revelation the truest guides of life hitherto known to man? How then
are we to keep this Heart pure, to free it, in other words, from the
plagues I have named? And how, on the other hand, are we to strengthen
it, to quicken its sluggish blood? In a word, how are we to attain to
the pinnacle of health, and religion, and freedom,--of power, and
love, and light? By political revolutions, and insurrections, and
Dasturs? By blindly adopting the triple political tradition of France,
which after many years of terror and bloodshed, only gave Europe a new
Yoke, a new Tyranny, a new grinding Machine? No, my Brothers; not by
political nomenclature, not by political revolutions alone, shall the
nations be emancipated."
Whereupon Ahmed Bey begins to knit his brows; Shakib shakes his head,
biting his nether lip; and here and there in the audience is heard a
murmur about retrogression and reaction. Khalid proceeds with his
allegory of the Muleteer and the Pack-Mule.
"See, the panel of the Mule is changed; the load, too; and a few
short-cuts are made in the rocky winding road of statecraft and
tyranny. Ah, the stolid, patient, drudging Mule always exults in a new
Panel, which, indeed, seems necessary every decade, or so. For the old
one, when, from a sense of economy, or from negligence or stupidity,
is kept on for a length of time, makes the back sore, and the Mule
becomes kickish and resty. Hence, the plasters of conservative
homeopathists, the operations suggested by political leeches, the
radical cures of social quacks, and such like. But the Mule continues
to kick against the pricks; and the wise Muleteer, these days, when he
has not the price of a new Panel, or knows not how to make one, sells
him to the first bidder. And the new owner thereupon washes the sores
and wounds, applies to them a salve of the patent kind, buys his Mule
a new Panel, and makes him do the work. That is what I understand by a
political revolution.... And are the Ottoman people free to-day? Who
in all Syria and Arabia dare openly criticise the new Owner of the
Mule?
"Ours in a sense is a theocratic Government. And only by reforming
the religion on which it is based, is political reform in any way
possible and enduring." And here he argues that the so-called
Reformation of Islam, of which Jelal ud-Dïn el-Afghani and Mohammed
Abdu are the protagonists, is false. It is based on theological
juggling and traditional sophisms. Their Al-Gazzali, whom they so much
prize and quote, is like the St. Augustine of the Christians: each of
these theologians finds in his own Book of Revelation a divine
criterion for measuring and judging all human knowledge. No; a
scientific truth can not be measured by a Korânic epigram: the Korân,
a divine guide to life; a work of the heart should not attempt to
judge a work of the mind or should be judged by it.
"But I would brush the cobwebs of interpretation and sophism from this
Work of the heart," he cries; "every spider's web in the Mosque, I
would sweep away. The garments of your religion, I would have you
clean, O my Brothers. Ay, even the threadbare adventitious wrappages,
I would throw away. From the religiosity and cant of to-day I call you
back to the religion pure of the heart...."
But the Field of poppies and daisies begins to sway as under a gale.
It is swelling violently, tumultuously.
"I would free al-Islam," he continues, "from its degrading customs,
its stupefying traditions, its enslaving superstitions, its imbruting
cants."
Here several voices in the audience order the speaker to stop.
"Innovation! Infidelity!" they cry.
"The yearly pestiferous consequences of the Haji"--But Khalid no
longer can be heard. On all sides zealotry raises and shakes a
protesting hand; on all sides it shrieks, objurgating, threatening.
Here it asks, "We would like to know if the speaker be a Wahhabi."
From another part of the Mosque comes the reply: "Ay, he is a
Wahhabi." And the voice of the speaker thundering above the storm:
"Only in Wahhabism pure and simple is the reformation of al-Islam
possible."... Finis.
Zealotry is set by the ear; the hornet's nest is stirred. Your field
of poppies and daisies, O Khalid, is miraculously transformed into a
pit of furious grey spectres and howling red spirits. And still you
wait in the tribune until the storm subside? Fool, fool! Art now in a
civilised assembly? Hast thou no eyes to see, no ears to hear?
"Reactionist! Infidel! Innovator! Wahhabi! Slay him! Kill him!"--Are
these likely to subside the while thou wait? By the tomb of St.
John there, get thee down, and quickly. Bravo, Shakib!--He rushes
to the tribune, drags him down by the jubbah, and, with the help of
another friend, hustles him out of the Mosque. But the thirst for
blood pursues them. And Khalid receives in the court outside a
stiletto-thrust in the back and a slash in the forehead above the
brow down to the ear. Which, indeed, we consider a part of his good
fortune. Like the muleteer of his Lebanon tour, we attribute his
escape with two wounds to the prayers of his good mother. For he is
now in the carriage with Shakib, the blood streaming down his back
and over his face. With difficulty the driver makes his way through
the crowds, issues out of the arcade, and--crack the whip! Quickly
to the Hotel.
The multitudes behind us, both inside and outside the Mosque, are
violently divided; for the real reactionists of Damascus, those who
are hostile to the Constitution and the statochratic Government, are
always watching for an opportunity to give the match to the dry sedges
of sedition. And so, the liberals, who are also the friends of Khalid,
and the fanatical mobs of the ulema, will have it out among
themselves. They call each other reactionists, plotters, conspirators;
and thereupon the bludgeons and poniards are brandished; the pistols
here and there are fired; the Dragoons hasten to the scene of
battle--but we are not writing now the History of the Ottoman
Revolution. We leave them to have it out among themselves as best they
can, and accompany our Khalid to the Hotel.
Here the good Mrs. Gotfry washes the blood from his face, and Shakib,
after helping him to bed, hastens to call the surgeon, who, having
come straightway, sews and dresses the wounds and assures us that they
are not dangerous. In the evening a number of Sheikhs of an
enlightened and generous strain, come to inquire about him. They tell
us that one of the assailants of Khalid, a noted brigand, and ten of
the reactionists, are now in prison. The Society Deputies, however, do
not seem much concerned about their wounded friend. Yes, they are
concerned, but in another direction and on weightier matters. For the
telegraph wires on the following day were kept busy. And in the
afternoon of the second day after the event, the man who helped Shakib
to save Khalid from the mob, comes to save Khalid's life. The
Superintendent of the Telegraph himself is here to inform us that
Khalid was accused to the Military Tribunal as a reactionist, and a
cablegram, in which he is summoned there, is just received.
"Had I delivered this to the Vali," he continues, "you would have been
now in the hands of the police, and to-morrow on your way to
Constantinople. But I shall not deliver it until you are safe out of
the City. And you must fly or abscond to-day, because I can not delay
the message until to-morrow."
Now Khalid and Shakib and Mrs. Gotfry take counsel together. The one
train for Baalbek leaves in the morning; the carriage road is ruined
from disuse; and only on horseback can we fly. So, Mrs. Gotfry orders
her dragoman to hire horses for three,--nay, for four, since we must
have an extra guide with us,--and a muleteer for the baggage.
And here Shakib interposes a suggestion: "They must not come to the
Hotel. Be with them on the road, near the first bridge, about the
first hour of night."
At the office of the Hotel the dragoman leaves word that they are
leaving for a friend's house on account of their patient.
And after dinner Mrs. Gotfry and Khalid set forth afoot, accompanied
by Shakib. In five minutes they reach the first bridge; the dragoman
and the guide, with their horses and lanterns, are there waiting.
Shakib helps Khalid to his horse and bids them farewell. He will leave
for Baalbek by the first train, and be there ahead of them.
* * * * *
And now, Reader, were we really romancing, we should here dilate of
the lovely ride in the lovely moonlight on the lovely road to Baalbek.
But truth to tell, the road is damnable, the welkin starless, the
night pitch-black, and our poor Dreamer is suffering from his wounds.